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Dashboard FAQs

Motor Vehicle Theft Statistics FAQs

This page will help you determine if the Motor Vehicle Theft Statistics dashboard can answer your question. The dashboard provides a count of stolen vehicles, organized by month, neighborhood, vehicle make, vehicle model, vehicle model year, day of week, and time of day (in 6 hour increments). The dashboard also provides vehicle recovery statistics for these categories. When a filter is applied using the dropdown filter menu or by clicking on a specific member within a category (ie: a specific vehicle make within the vehicle make category), all of the statistics on the dashboard are updated.

Can I use the Monthly Stolen Vehicle Statistics dashboard to answer the following questions?

Can I find out more information about stolen Hondas? More specifically, can I find out how many 2005 Honda Accords have been stolen?

YES. The dashboard allows for the count of vehicles stolen by make, model, and model year. You can find the total number of stolen vehicles for any combination of these filters. Simply select the make or model from the dropdown filter menu then click on year of vehicle in the chart at the bottom of the dashboard. The statistics for this combination of filters will be shown in the dashboard.

Can I find out how many vehicles have been stolen in my neighborhood during the last few months?

YES. The default dashboard shows stolen vehicle statistics for the entire City of Portland during the last 13 months. These statistics can be broken down by a single neighborhood or a selection of neighborhoods by using the “Filter by Neighborhood” dropdown filter. Use the “Filter by Reported Date of Theft” dropdown filter to customize the date range.

Can I find out what percentage of stolen vehicles are recovered?

YES. The dashboard includes the percentage of vehicles recovered within 30 days and the percentage of vehicles recovered to date (as of the date the dashboard was last updated). The recovery rates are updated as filters are applied. The user can find recovery rates for specific vehicle makes and models by applying those filters from the dropdown menu. These dropdown filters allow the user to select one or more items from each of the filter categories.

Can I find the official count of motor vehicle theft in Portland?

NO. This dashboard provides statistics for vehicles reported as stolen to the Portland Police Bureau. The vehicles in this dashboard must have a minimum amount of information to be included in the dataset. The official count of motor vehicle thefts includes attempted motor vehicles thefts. Attempted motor vehicle thefts are counted as an offense for official NIBRS Group A offense statistics. For a count of completed and attempted motor vehicle theft by neighborhood and month, visit the Monthly Neighborhood Offense Statistics dashboard at: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/71978

Can I determine if there have been any vehicles stolen on my street?

NO. This dashboard does not provide stolen vehicle information at the block-level. Vehicle information is characterized at the neighborhood-level. For information on motor vehicle thefts, including attempted thefts at the block-level, please download the open data from the Monthly Neighborhood Offense Statistics dashboard. Motor vehicle thefts that have occurred near a specific street address can be found at www.portlandmaps.com. Stolen vehicle information (make, model, model year) is not currently available by address.

Can I find the vehicle makes and models that are more likely to be stolen? Can I find out if my vehicle is more likely to be stolen in a certain neighborhood?

NO. The dashboard provides counts of stolen vehicles by model and by the neighborhood where the vehicle was from but does not provide any stolen vehicle rates. The dashboard does not adjust these counts by the ownership rates for a given model or the day/night population and area of a given neighborhood. It is possible that certain models have a higher chance of being stolen or certain neighborhoods have higher motor vehicle theft rates. We must be careful to make conclusions about models with higher theft counts without considering the ownership rates of certain vehicles in Portland neighborhoods. Also, it is important to consider the area, population, and land development of a neighborhood before making conclusions about the rates of vehicle theft.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the vehicle make and model listed as “unknown” for some vehicles?

A victim of a motor vehicle theft provides the information about their stolen vehicle to the Portland Police Bureau at the time of filing a report. There are some occasions when the specific vehicle make and model is not known by the victim.

How is the time and day of theft determined?

It is common for a victim to be unaware that their vehicle was stolen until they return to their vehicle. When a victim is not aware of the specific moment their vehicle was stolen they provide an approximate time and date that the motor vehicle theft occurred. A victim can report a range from when they last saw their vehicle to when they realized it was stolen. The dashboard uses the earliest time and date the vehicle was believed to be stolen in the “Stolen Vehicles by Time and Day of Theft” visualization.

Why is a certain vehicle model missing from the dashboard?

The dashboard only includes vehicle makes and models that have been reported as stolen to the Portland Police Bureau since May 2015. The list of vehicle makes and vehicle models in the dropdown filter is updated as new vehicles are included in the dataset.

How are the vehicle recovery rates calculated?

When a vehicle is recovered or reported as recovered by the Portland Police Bureau or another regional agency the recovery date is added to the stolen vehicle report. The number of vehicles recovered within 30 days or less is calculated by finding the difference between the date a vehicle is reported as stolen and the date when a vehicle is recovered. The number of vehicles recovered to date is a count of all vehicles that have been recovered by the time the dashboard was updated (on the 15th of each month).

Why are pre-1980 model years removed from the Stolen Vehicles by Model Year chart?

Vehicles with a model year of 1979 or earlier are not included in the model year chart in order to better show the distribution of stolen vehicles by model year. There are a small number of pre-1980 vehicles in the dataset and the inclusion of these vehicles would cause the chart to be skewed to the left. Pre-1980 vehicles are included in the overall statistics but not in the model year chart.